Come On, Skinny Love
by Cockroach Cluster
Summary: James S. Potter & Holly Atrist discover themselves in the most unconventional way. A story of friendship, love, growing up, and, most importantly, letting go. Ironically & typically, it's better than it sounds .


Summertime's warm blanket sky folded across a clearing on the wooded outskirts of Devon. Surrounded by a looming forest and bathed in the sun's dying reflection, the small circular enclosure held an audience of giggling trees - tickled lightly by whispering gusts of summer wind. The sweet breeze contrasted beautifully with the sky's starry quilt, creating an ideal climate for the two teenagers lying silently on the soft grass.

It was past midnight where they lay. By now, crickets had taken the stage and restrung their violins for the closing act. Their purrs were not as much heard as they were felt, for the nature around them had taken to gossiping in hushed murmurs about the pair in the clearing.

The boy and the girl lying head-to-head on their backs in the grass were not at all unwelcome visitors. In fact, the pair were not even unfamiliar guests in the clearing. They, to the chattering trees, were practically family. This had to be the eighth year that the boy and girl had taken up a temporary nighttime residence in the forest, though only for about a week each summer. The crickets and grasshoppers did not at all mind – they were more than happy to have an eager audience for their performances, seeing as the usual wooden spectators were more interested in giggling with the wind than enjoying an improvised song.

It was therefore unfortunate that, unknown to the natural world surrounding the two, neither the boy nor the girl paid any actual attention to music of the forest. They were far too infatuated with each other's presence, though they would never freely admit that to themselves, let alone one another. So, for now, they enjoyed simply talking at the sky, their hands folded across their chests and their toes pointing at the stars.

There was nothing visibly remarkable about these two teenagers, aside from the fact that they were outside at a rather unruly hour of the night. The boy, a dark-haired, tanned, and somewhat awkwardly lanky teen, was a relatively average wizard for his age. His marks in school were decent, his interests typical of seventeen-year-old boys. He gave off no specific vibe or aura of self-importance. No, James Potter was a normal teenager by what the trees had gathered. It was the girl beside him whose air was something more exotic.

Holly Atrist was fifteen, also dark-haired, with the kind of obstinate presence that demanded her immediate attention. She was intelligent, vastly intelligent, and completely aware of it. This was the sort of witch who knew herself too well, thought too fast, learned too quickly, and always got caught up in these overbearing talents because of unpreventable naivety and inquisitiveness. Pretentious failed to describe her. Arrogant didn't come close. She was neither of these adjectives nor were they meager descriptions of Holly Atrist. She was unnaturally modest, noble, humble, and thoughtful. So many elements of her personality mingled into the most unexpected kind of person. This girl was a more complex figure for the trees and the grasshoppers and the crickets to even attempt to contemplate. Since she seven years old this forest had stared, wide-eyed and eager, at the image of the little witch. Since she was seven years old they have failed to understand her, nor why she kept company like James Potter, who, to the woods, seemed so far below her comprehension level that a friendship like theirs did not appear plausible. But, contrary to outward appearances of inward selves, the pair were inseparable best friends since their early childhood years when they first met in the very spot they lay in now, head-to-head, their dark hair touching each other's scalps.

"Jamesssssss."

The sudden whisper sliced into the clearing's still air. The two had been laying silently for the past few minutes, taking in all of the aromas, sounds, and feelings that the forest had to offer them. James opened one hazel eye at the sky and grunted to show he was listening.

"You'll be a seventh year."

* * *

I didn't know what to think initially when she said those words. You don't really feel any particular emotion towards the subject of graduating until you've thought good and hard on it.

And I hadn't really given it much thought.

In this clearing, nothing really mattered. Not school, not my future, not my friends nor my family. It was a place entirely my own, and, while shared, it gave me time to myself. Hogwarts was the last thing I wanted to think about, especially since summertime was coming to a close at some unnaturally rapid pace. This was also my last night with Holly before school started. So, naturally, I was not at all interested in the subject of my seventh year. It was only out of respect for conversation that I even bothered to amuse myself with the thought.

Holly and I had met in this same clearing eight years ago. She was seven, I was nine. I still remember seeing her climbing out of the prickly thorns and brush with such a nymph-like pleasure, her scraggly brown curls covered in leaves and sticks, and me thinking she was a faerie because her eyes were so shockingly auburn that I could literally see the speckled flecks of red complimenting her irises. We lived across the lake from one another, and she, at seven years old, had made the trek four miles from her home, around the mass of water, and into the forest in order to reach my house. And she did this with such a non-chalant look in her eyes that I was immediately fascinated. This girl, I had decided upon exchanging names, was very different from anybody else I had met in my short lifetime. Not very many seven-year-olds are so concerned about their neighbors that they walk four miles around a lake to meet them without consulting a parent or guardian. But that, I later discovered, was just Holly's way.

So these were the things I thought of when the word "seventh year" teased my ear.

This was it – in a few short weeks I'd enter my final year in school– and the day I met Holly had come to mind. I didn't even know what to think of that. Shouldn't I, a soon-to-be predator on the food chain of Hogwarts, be considering my future? What did I want to do with my life? What had all those tests and meetings with teachers meant to me?

I shuddered as a light gust of wind surprised my comfortably warm position and caused me to erupt in goosebumps. Somehow I knew it was my cue to respond to Holly.

"Yeah," I said. And that was it. "Yeah."

* * *

I languish on the grassy bed this clearing has made me. The air smells like pine, like rotting wood, like decaying nature and thyme. I'm on my back because I don't trust the trees and their gossip. Even when James guards my head with his, I eye our giant rustling company suspiciously. They loom threateningly back.

The sky has been painted over roughly by Nighttime and he missed several spots. I imagine those winking windows of light reflected in my own eyes. Their mirror image is so much more appealing than their selves.

James is pondering and I can tell because I smell his thoughts like I smell the russet sap of evergreens. Sometimes I catch him off guard on purpose just for this aroma. It's indescribable but comparable – like citrus and chocolate. I let him take as long as he likes because for him thoughts come out crumpled and thin like a new baby bat's wings and all they really need is to dry or grow. Often James won't speak his mind for several minutes and pilot a successful flight on the first try, but occasionally the tissue-paper wings on his words jump from the nest and miss the air.

I was staring at one star in particular and thinking of absolutely nothing when he finally uttered a follow-up for his last insufficient reply of "yeah."

"I wish this was easier," he murmured, adding no further explanation. I understood immediately. He was referencing our relationship.

James and I were never capable of engineering our feelings for each other into words, so we simply never brought them up. They hung in the air meaningfully as if waiting for some grand introduction, but neither of us knew what to say in their preface. Our story, it seemed, lacked a foreword, and therefore any substance or chapters. Instead we silently slipped our emotions in our breast pockets and patted them with some closing significance and went on with our lives. Such are the woes of childhood friends who got so close that their puppet strings eventually tangled and snapped, leaving some parts motionless. It was so exhilarating and frustrating and beautiful, understanding something that we couldn't understand, all of which was understood. Driven by these emotions we put buttons on our breast pockets and shrugged at our immobility and began writing new prologues to false biographies. James' started with me and ended with Chrys, and mine began with him and closed with Scorpius.

But at least I knew the text in James' novel would always be in auburn.

-/

Alright, chapter one. I know it's super wordy and imagery-laden and shit, but don't expect that in the next chapter. I plan on dumbing it down because, honestly, it's easier to write that way. As you may have noticed, the point of views changed from third person to first person (James) to first person (Holly). I don't think I'll venture into Holly's head anytime soon because she's too tough of a character for me to handle. She's like a thesis statement – so over-complicated and over-worded that she loses meaning. By giving you guys only a glimpse of her in James' eyes, you won't be so frustrated with her.

What I see when I think of Holly is a thin and short girl, about 5'4", with curly dark brown hair about to her ears and freckles littering her nose and cheekbones. She isn't beautiful but she's interesting, with petite, pixie-like features and red-brown eyes and. As far as style goes, think cut-offs and ratty plaid, Arcade Fire and Mirah, the Decemberists and Ani Difranco. Imagine her with several tatty brown and black bracelets on one wrist and patches on her bag and Birkenstocks or combat boots or holey Converse. Think anarchy, hipsters, veganism, and alternative living. That is how I see Holly.


End file.
